Thornlost (Book 3) (5 page)

“We’ll be entirely happy in the wagon,” seconded Chat. “Please don’t trouble yourself.”

“All settled, then?” Vered tossed back his shaggy fair hair, beamed a smile at them, snagged his glisker’s elbow, and made for the house. “Getting a smidgeon chill out here—time for the hearth within the home for a last few rounds. G’night, Cade!”

“He’ll be useless tomorrow,” Cade predicted, watching them go.

“He always is,” agreed Mieka, “after more than two cups of anything stronger than wine. Are you sure you won’t stay?”

“Beholden, but no. Again, Mistress, I’m in your debt. It was an excellent day.” When Mieka pouted, Cade sighed with exaggerated patience. “Kearney was kind enough to bring my mother in his carriage, but he lives across town from Redpebble and even if we leave right now, it’ll be past midnight before his horses get home and stabled.”

Mieka followed him into the house to collect Derien, Lady Jaspiela, and Mistress Mirdley. Vered was right: The spring evening had cooled considerably, and there was a fire going in the drawing room hearth, with much of his family grouped round it. He cheered up at the sight. This was what a home ought to be: warmed by liquor and firelight, noisy with the laughter of guests he enjoyed. If only he could’ve persuaded Cayden to linger, it would all have been perfect.

The change in temperature from outside to inside reminded him—finally—of his Namingday gift for Cade. Weaving his way through the crowd, he scurried down the hall to his bedchamber and rummaged about in the tall oaken cupboard that had been a wedding present from Jed and Blye. Moments later he had wrestled the big muslin-wrapped package from its hiding place.

Anticipating Cade’s move into his own digs, Mieka had designed, and his wife and her mother had made, a counterpane. Well,
designed
probably wasn’t the right word; he’d told them his idea, and they’d executed it. The quilted coverlet was thickly embroidered with a pattern of white goose-feather quills on a dark blue background. The border featured little bottles of ink in every color imaginable, with comical splotches here and there to show it had been spilled. And at the writing end of one feather was a tiny silver teardrop charm to symbolize the magic
Cayden created with his words. How anyone, even accomplished needlewomen like his wife and her mother, could take silks and threads and craft something so wonderful was beyond his understanding. But probably people said the same thing about what his father did when making a lute, or what Mieka himself did with the magic Cade gave him in the withies.

The carriage had pulled round in front of the house, and everyone but Cade had climbed into it. Mieka’s mother, with the three-year-olds Jorie and Tavier drowsing in her arms, one on each hip, was supervising the loading of a hamper, but doing it quietly. Mistress Mirdley had helped with the cooking, and in all fairness should take some of it home with her. Besides, more food remained than even the tribe of Windthistles could eat, and it was only sensible to make sure none of it went to waste. Mieka knew that these considerations were neither here nor there nor anywhere else to Lady Jaspiela’s way of thinking. She would take offense at any implication that other people’s leftovers were needed to feed her household. So Mieka had had a brief word with his mother earlier, and she had nodded understanding.

“A proud woman, she is,” Mishia Windthistle had sighed. “One could wish she’d unbend enough to say how proud she is of Cayden… oh, she is, and no mistaking it,” she’d added when Mieka stared at her. “How could any mother not be priding herself on a son like that?”

There were mothers, and then there were mothers, as Mieka knew very well. But he didn’t belabor the point. Now, as Jeska and Rafe hugged their tregetour farewell for the night, and Lady Jaspiela raised her noble voice impatiently, Mieka sighed a sigh of his own. One day the woman might admit she was proud of her elder son. He didn’t plan to sit up nights waiting for it.

“Quill!” He saw his friend turn towards him, and heaved the package. Cade barely caught it. “For if you get cold,” Mieka told him.

Rafe pretended amazement. “There’s a
girl
tied up in there?”

Crisiant gave her husband a thoughtful glance. “Cade has always liked them pocket-sized, hasn’t he?”

Cade made a face at her and undid the ribbon. The counterpane unwrapped itself. Mieka doubled over laughing as Cade struggled to keep it off the ground. Jeska cowered back in mock horror, yelling, “It’s alive!”

“A sword!” Rafe called out. “A knife! A toasting fork! Anything to stab it before it eats my tregetour!”

“Don’t be so bleedin’ silly!” Mieka chided. “Not enough meat on him to tempt a starving cat.”

Cade eventually wrestled most of the slippery silk into his arms. He wore a look of comical helplessness—quite deliberate, Mieka knew. Quite the entertainer himself at times, was Cayden Silversun.

Mieka clucked his tongue against his teeth as he tucked up a few loose folds. “Clumperton. It’s a miracle, it is, that you can put one foot in front of the other and not fall over. Go on, get in and spread that over your mother and brother before they freeze. Happy Namingday, Quill!”

The gray eyes glinted merrily at him. “And to think I’ve a whole year and more to think up something for
your
twenty-first!”

“I tremble in terror, O Great Tregetour,” Mieka assured him.

“You’d damned well better!”

A few minutes later the counterpane had been duly deployed to keep the carriage’s occupants warm. Kearney was full of praise for its beauty and the skill of its makers. Lady Jaspiela unbent enough to finger the design of feathers and nod approval. Derien was already asleep on Mistress Mirdley’s lap. Mieka waved them onto the road, then returned to the courtyard.

It was a rather abrupt end to the party. Yazz had doused the bonfire. Robel was stacking chairs, and Mieka spent a minute or two admiring the swish and rustle of her skirts and the luscious
figure beneath them. Jezael was consolidating the remains of three barrels of ale into one, and Mieka offered to help by draining one of them down his own throat. His elder brother snorted.

“Help me with these or I’ll drown you in one of them—the way Mum should’ve done to you at birth.”

“That I was born at all is your fault, yours and Jed’s,” he retorted, and helped Jez heft a barrel. “You turned out so revoltingly adorable that she wanted more. How was poor Mum to know she’d get me and Jinsie instead?”

“It’s a wonderment to me that Cilka and Petrinka and then Tavier and Jorie came along, then. And I’ve no idea in the world why your little Jindra is such a darling, with you for a sire. Are you planning on more? Or are you scared you might get something like
you
next time?”

The barrel safely drained, Mieka pushed it into his brother’s massive chest. It made no impression, other than to make him grunt. Jez let it fall, then reached over and snagged Mieka by his collar, lifting him effortlessly a few inches off the ground.

“Now, what was that you were trying to say, little brother? Something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry, Jez’ and ‘You’re always right, Jez’?”

He barely had time to kick and flail a bit, as had been usual with this game since they were children, when Jez abruptly released him. He landed on his bum on the cobblestones, and glared up—way up—at his brother. “Is this any way to treat a famous Master Glisker who’s celebrated and praised the length and width of Albeyn?”

But Jezael wasn’t looking at him. He was smiling in the direction of the house as he murmured, “I’ll finish you off later, Your Lordship.” Then, more loudly: “Time to put your husband to bed, I think—he’s falling-down drunk!”

“I only fell down because you dropped me!” He scrambled to his feet and brushed himself off, then seized his wife around the
waist and kissed her. She resisted, so he kissed her harder. When she yielded, he relented, and hugged her. “You should’ve come with me to see the Silversuns off.”

“I couldn’t. Oh, Mieka, I just couldn’t, not after what was said.” He racked his memory for some unseemliness, but she spared him the trouble by rushing on. “It’s just not done, to invite someone to a celebration so far from the city and then—and then someone implying we’ve not enough beds for them—”

“Oh, that.” He shook his head. “Don’t anguish yourself about it, girl.”

“But I so much wanted Lady Jaspiela to like us—”

“Lady Jaspiela likes us fine. Would she have come today if she didn’t?”

“But, Mieka—”

“Enough.” He knew where this conversation was headed. She wanted Lady Jaspiela to like them enough to invite them to Redpebble Square, preferably when there were other highborns about. As if there were any fun to be had in a swarm of nobles—except to scandalize them. Still, because he knew it was important to her, he added, “While we’re at Trials, why don’t you visit at Wistly for a few days? You could go see Blye and Jed, and just happen to drop in on Lady Jaspiela, and—”

“Without an invitation? It’s not done, Mieka, it just is not
done
!”

Annoyed, he shrugged and let her go. “Just as you fancy. Let’s get some mulled ale going in the drawing room, shall we? The night’s gone chill.”

G
allantrybanks was a long drive from Hilldrop. A
very
long drive. The trip wouldn’t have been half so tedious if Derien had been awake. Circumspect and manners-minding as the brothers usually were around their mother, still there would have been interesting conversation. As it was, the boy slept in Mistress Mirdley’s lap, only his tousled dark hair visible amid the billowing counterpane. It fell therefore to Cade to make polite social mouthings from time to time.

Kearney Fairwalk was no help. When it came to His Lordship, Lady Jaspiela swung between two extremes: respect for his ancient name and title, and total incomprehension of why he had chosen to amuse his noble self by managing a theater group. Depending on which attitude she exhibited at any given time, Kearney either obliged her with Court gossip or shut up completely. Tonight was one of the silent times. He had, after all, just delivered the wagon in which her elder son would be traipsing across Albeyn making an exhibition of himself. After apologizing for any discomfort she might experience on the drive back to Gallantrybanks, he subsided into the carriage’s farthest corner and to all appearances went to sleep.

So, after a few miles, it was up to Cade to start a conversation. He expressed his appreciation that his mother had taken the trouble to come all this way for his Namingday party. She answered that it had indeed been tiring. A few minutes later he remarked on how nice Mieka’s neighbors seemed to be. She replied that she hadn’t spoken to any of them. Another mile or two went by before he mentioned that Mieka’s little daughter was a very pretty child.

Lady Jaspiela shrugged, a rustling of silk in the darkness of the carriage. “They had best hope that she grows up prettily enough to compensate for her circumstances. One can scarcely expect a worthwhile marriage for the daughter of a theater player and a seamstress.”

“Windthistle is one of the oldest Elfen names there is.”

“A meaningless consideration, after this descent into the working classes.”

Though he couldn’t see her face, he knew precisely which of her many condescending expressions she would be wearing. “
I’m
a theater player,” he said. Then, most unwisely: “
I’m
working class.”

“No, you are not. There is a difference, Cayden, between how a gentleman amuses himself in his youth and what a person must do to keep a roof over his head.”

A slight, involuntary movement of Kearney’s shoulders told Cade that he was faking sleep. The grunt and sigh that followed signaled that he intended to go on faking; no gentleman would make such boorish noises while conscious, and therefore His Lordship
must
be asleep. Cade rather admired the shrewdness of the deception, and for the rest of the drive kept his mouth shut.

At some point along the rest of the silent way home he realized that his mother had given him the first hint of what was to come. And it came only minutes after leaving the elegant confines of Lord Fairwalk’s carriage for the vestibule of Number Eight, Redpebble Square. Lady Jaspiela told Mistress Mirdley to take Derien up to bed, then turned to Cade.

“A few moments of your time, please, Cayden.”

He knew what she wanted to talk about. Money. More to the point,
his
money, the inheritance from his father’s father, who’d been a Master Fettler back in the day. She was about to tell Cayden that because he was now financially independent, he need not continue in the theater. She would mention the advantages of his acquaintance with Princess Miriuzca, Prince Ashgar’s bride. She would remind him of his father’s position at Court and of her own noble antecedents, and end with the observation that whereas he’d enjoyed a certain amount of success, it was time he settled to a profession worthier of his ancestors than that of Master Tregetour.

He was right about the money, but wrong about everything else.

She led him into the drawing room. One of the footmen had made up a nice little fire against the spring evening’s chill, and left a long-necked bottle of Colvado brandy and a pair of snifters on a side table. This told him she had been planning this discussion and had left orders for her comfort. Cade poured liquor into each glass, presented her with one, and waited while she seated herself with an instinctively well-designed arrangement of skirts. Some portion of his mind made note of the precision of the drapery for use onstage; the little details of a performance always meant so much.